Nothin But Net Page 7

“Camp Woodbine. Should be easy pickin’s, but you never know. I think losing to Camp Chickasaw took a lot out of our guys. Killed the mystique, the aura, know what I mean?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hang in there, Tim,” Dunbar advised as he got up to go. “Stay cool, and distribute the ball around. You’ll be fine.”

  “Thanks,” Tim said, but as the door closed behind Dick, he felt anything but fine. The weight of the world had just come crashing down on him. The whole camp would be watching him — the kid who took Mike Gruber out of contention — to see if he could measure up to Gruber’s high standards.

  If he failed …

  Tim swallowed hard. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen if he let the team down, and they lost another intercamp games because of him.

  Tim had made up his mind. He’d had enough of getting revenge, on Mike Gruber or anybody else. It didn’t make him feel any better, really, and it just made the other guy madder. Sooner or later, Tim would find himself the victim of Gruber’s revenge, or whomever’s, and the whole cycle would go on forever, or at least until Tim and Billy’s last week here was up. No, revenge wasn’t where it was at. Tim had decided that the way to show Gruber was to become the best point guard Camp Wickasaukee had ever had.

  Of course, that was easier said than done. In his two-plus weeks here, Tim had already blown it big time by losing the game against Chickasaw. But from now on, as Dick Dunbar had said, he would be the Eagles starting point guard. He’d have a lot more minutes on the court to show what he could do. And Tim was determined to make the most of his opportunity.

  Camp Woodbine was supposed to be a pushover. At least, that’s what the veteran campers all said. But something about the way they said it made Tim wonder. They sounded as if they were saying it to convince themselves of something they didn’t really believe in their hearts.

  Tim knew why, too. It was because the loss to Chickasaw had shaken their confidence. No longer was Camp Wickasaukee invulnerable. Superman had met kryptonite, and now, nothing was a sure thing — especially not with the great Mike Gruber sidelined. And that, of course, was Tim’s fault, too.

  He heard the nervousness in Jody’s voice that morning as they prepared to take on Camp Woodbine. “This camp has never lost two intercamp games in one summer — never. And we’ve got the big rematch with Camp Chickasaw next week. So if you guys blow it today, and we get beat again next week … well, let’s just say it better not happen, okay? Every kid who ever went to this camp is counting on you guys to come through today.”

  Well, thought Tim, that’s easy for him to say. He doesn’t have to get out there and play. But he didn’t say anything. All morning, as they battled Camp Woodbine in soccer (a 3–2 loss), swimming (a narrow victory), and softball (a lopsided win), Jody kept reminding them of what was at stake.

  The basketball game was set to begin at 4 P.M., and by 3:30, the gym was already filling up with spectators. “We’re up by two points,” Tim heard Brian Kelly tell Mike Gruber as the two of them sat on the Eagles bench. Brian was suited up, but Mike was in jeans and a T-shirt. His eyes, shooting daggers of hatred, followed Tim wherever he went. It was almost more than Tim could stand.

  He wanted to go over and speak to Mike, to tell him he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant to break his finger. But he knew Mike wouldn’t believe him — not after the warm-water stunt and all that business with Stephanie Krause.

  They were only up by two points. The basketball game was worth five. This was it, and everybody knew it. Lose, and they’d set a record for failure that would probably live in infamy forever in Camp Wickasaukee lore. Win, and he could start to turn the page on all the bad stuff that had happened so far this summer.

  Billy was now on the Eagles basketball team as an emergency replacement. Tim had lobbied for him with Jody the day before. “We need rebounding and shot blocking,” he’d told him. “Tito says they have a kid who’s six foot four.”

  “We’ve got Bobby Last,” Jody had countered.

  “Yeah, but what if he gets in foul trouble?”

  “Hmmm. Maybe you’re right. I’ll think about it.” And he had. He’d put Billy on the team, in spite of the howls of protest from the other kids.

  The game began, and Tim stopped thinking about all the other things that were weighing on his mind. He concentrated on basketball alone, and so did the other Eagles. By halftime, they were up by 12 points and were looking good, except that Bobby Last had four fouls already.

  “You’re gonna have to sit for a while,” Jody told Last.

  “No, Coach,” Bobby complained. “Put me in — I’ll take it easy on him.”

  Him being the tall kid on the other team — the kid who had single-handedly kept his team in the game with 14 points, a ton of rebounds, and six blocked shots in the first half.

  “Nope. Can’t afford to lose you. Donnie — I’m putting you on the big guy. Don’t get in foul trouble, but stay on him as best you can.” He turned to Tim. “You’re doing good, Daniels. Keep it up. Just control the tempo. Remember, the clock is our friend. And take care of the ball. No turnovers.”

  “Right,” Tim said, all business.

  The whistle blew for the start of the second half, and Tim got up off the bench. As he headed back onto the court, he scanned the bleachers, looking to see if Mike Gruber was still there. He hadn’t been on the bench at halftime, which was a surprise to Tim. He’d have thought Mike would still want to feel like a part of the team, even though he was injured.

  And then he saw Mike and knew at once why he hadn’t been on the bench. Gruber was in the last row of the bleachers, with his arm around Stephanie Krause’s shoulder. When he saw Tim looking at them, he leaned over and kissed Stephanie right on the lips. And he kept it up for a long time, too. Tim stood there, ignoring the ref’s whistle, until Brian Kelly came over and shook him. “Yo, shorty, are you in this game or not?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah,” Tim said, feeling his face go red. “Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s do it.”

  Woodbine won the tap, and went right to their big man. He worked his way in on Donnie D. and sank an easy layup. Donnie was a great player, but he was five inches shorter than this kid. There was no way he could stop him without fouling him. Tim knew he was going to have to ratchet up the offense, or Woodbine would come storming back on the shoulders of their giant center.

  Tim took the inbounds pass and sped up the floor. He switched hands on the dribble, bounced it between his legs, and drove the lane, heading for the basket.

  Now if that didn’t impress Stephanie, nothing would.

  Bam! The big kid in the middle swatted away his shot like it was a mosquito. The rebound resulted in a fast-break bucket the other way, and suddenly, the lead was down to 8.

  Tim brought the ball upcourt again, determined this time to show Stephanie what he could do. He pictured himself back on the playground, dribbling circles around the other kids and sinking uncontested layups. But the Woodbine team was playing a zone here, and they were clogging the lane so much that Tim had to back it out to the high post.

  He glanced over to the sidelines and saw Mike, still with his arm around Stephanie. Again, he leaned over and kissed her. And just then, Tim saw a blur going past him — it was the other team’s point guard, robbing him of the ball and streaking downcourt for the uncontested layup Tim was supposed to have scored!

  Now it was only a 6-point lead, and Jody yelled for time-out. “Daniels, take a seat,” he told Tim, pointing to the bench. “Binkman, you’re in.”

  Tim’s face burned with shame as the third-string point guard, Steve Binkman, went into the game. Steve was a pretty good outside shooter, as Tim well knew from scrimmages and previous games, but he couldn’t dribble to save his life! Why was Jody putting him in at point guard, the position that ran all the plays and handled the ball the most?

  “Now look,” Jody told Tim after play had resumed, “I want you to go back in there next whistle, but I want you to quit hogging the b
all. You dish it, okay? Every time. I don’t want you taking any shots, understand? No bricks from outside, no layups that get stuffed inside. You dish it to Donnie and make everyone clear out for him.”

  Tim nodded, grateful that Jody was giving him one more chance to redeem himself. When the whistle blew, there were only two minutes left in the game, and Wickasaukee had lost the lead. They were down by 3 points — not an impossible task — but so much was riding on an Eagles victory that it felt like they had to climb Mt. Everest.

  Tim took the inbounds pass and called for a Brooklyn Three. Three meant Donnie, who was playing center for them now, with Last fouled out. Tim tossed it to Donnie, who tossed it right back, then spun off his man and headed toward the basket. Tim lofted the ball slowly over the surprised defender, and Donnie reached over his head to touch the pass and send it off the glass and into the basket.

  It was a world-class play, and the entire bench and bleachers erupted in cheers. Those cheers rose even higher when Donnie stole the ball and drove to the hoop again, finishing it with a slam dunk!

  They had the lead now, but not for long. Woodbine’s center had the ball and was backing Donnie up toward the basket. The giant turned and laid a soft hook right through the hoop.

  Tim took a quick glance at the clock and saw that he had only thirty seconds to work with. He knew he needed to waste a lot of it, so that the Eagles’ next shot would be the game’s last. Tim didn’t want to give Camp Woodbine a chance to come back down the floor.

  He dribbled until they came out after him, then dished off to Donnie. Now it was DeGeronimo’s turn to do his magic. He spun one way, then the other, faked the shot, and the giant, who had leapt into the air, crashed down on Donnie’s shoulders. The ref’s whistle blew, and Donnie went to the line for two foul shots.

  With the crowd screaming, cheering him on, he sank the first. But the second shot caromed off the rim and to the right. Tim went after it like a cat and grabbed the rebound away from two Woodbine players. He sprung into the air and led Donnie, who was cutting for the basket. Donnie grabbed the ball in midstride and laid it up and in, just as the final buzzer sounded. They’d won the game, by 2 points. And Tim had contributed the winning assist!

  Everyone on the Eagles leapt into each others’ arms and danced up and down on the court, as the defeated Woodbine team shuffled off in defeat. Tim tried to spot Gruber and Stephanie in the crowd. Had she seen him in his finest moment? Or had she been too busy kissing Mike?

  He couldn’t find them, and now his teammates were slapping him on the back, congratulating him for a job well done. He was glad for the recognition — after all, he’d been after it for weeks — but the sight of Mike and Stephanie kissing had left him with an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. And the fact that he’d pretty much blown the game before coming back in to help save it took something away from the moment. It was a victory all right, but a bittersweet one. He’d have to do much better next week, when Camp Chickasaw blew back in for the big rematch.

  12

  So you think you’re all that now, huh?”

  Tim stared into the angry green eyes of Mike Gruber and didn’t know how to answer him.

  “You think you won the big game, so now you’re the cheese?” Gruber pushed open the door of Tim’s room, and Tim backed away to let him enter. “That was a team we should have beaten by forty points, yo. And if you hadn’t broken my finger, we would have.”

  “It was an accident, Mike, I swear it,” Tim assured him, but Mike just kept coming, and Tim kept retreating till, with a shove of his hand, Mike pushed Tim down on the bed and stood glowering down at him.

  “Sure,” he said. “No sweat, man. You didn’t mean it. You just kept pushing on that door even after we told you to stop, because you wanted to save that poor little squirrel, right?”

  “I didn’t say that …,” Tim began, but Mike didn’t want to hear his explanations.

  “And making me wet my bed,” Mike said. “That was an accident, too?”

  “Well … actually, I feel really bad about that one,” Tim said. “It’s just — well, you know, after the thing you and Stephanie pulled on me —”

  “Stephanie’s mine, understand?” Mike interrupted. “Just stay away from her.”

  “What?” What was Mike talking about? Of course Stephanie was his girlfriend. It wasn’t like she liked Tim or anything … was it?

  No, come on. What was he thinking? “I’ll stay away from her,” he assured Mike. “Why would I want to talk to her anyway, after what she did to me?”

  “You deserved it,” Mike growled. “You deserve a lot worse. Watch out or you’ll get it, too.”

  He turned on his heel and walked out of the little room, leaving Tim staring after him.

  It was one thing to beat a team like Woodbine, with only one really dangerous player. It was another thing to beat Chickasaw, a team that played ferocious defense and could score at will if you didn’t stick to them like glue.

  If they lost to Chickasaw again, Tim would be right back in the doghouse. And he knew if he didn’t pick up his game between now and then, that was exactly what would happen.

  So he was totally psyched when Tito came back to Eagles Nest and announced that the NBA players would be arriving the next day for the annual summer clinic. Especially when he heard that one of the players coming was Allister Edwards. Tim had watched Edwards play for years, leading his team to the NBA finals twice. Watching the games on TV wasn’t nearly as much fun since Edwards had retired two seasons ago.

  If anybody could help him become the best point guard Wickasaukee had ever seen, it had to be Allister Edwards! But in a one-day clinic, how could he make sure he got enough of Edwards’s time and attention?

  The morning featured the NBA stars doing their warm-ups — sinking shot after shot from beyond the arc and behind the foul line, performing incredible spin dunks and behind-the-back passes as they went through their everyday routines.

  Then Charlie Jansen, the legendary onetime coach of the Sixers, had the players demonstrate key fundamentals. He called up several volunteers from the audience — but he never called on Tim, whose arm threatened to pull free from its socket, he raised it so high and so often.

  The morning session ended with the campers doing their drills and the NBA stars and coaches watching and giving guidance. “Roll it off your fingertips!” one of them told Tim after he bricked a jump shot off the backboard. “And give it a higher arc.” Tim had to go around to the back of the line after his shot, though, and he didn’t get the chance to take several in a row and get it right.

  He was beginning to despair of getting any time at all with Allister Edwards. Then, at lunch, Tito told him and Gruber to shove over to each side, to make room for a guest. Tim nearly swallowed his tongue when he saw that it was none other than the man he wanted to talk to most in the whole wide world.

  For most of lunch, Mike Gruber didn’t shut up, talking up a storm and hogging all Edwards’s attention. But Mike seemed more interested in talking about how great he was himself than he did in learning anything.

  Finally, Dick Dunbar spoke up. “You know, Al,” he said, “Mike’s a super point guard, and him getting injured hurts us a lot. We’ve got Tim here filling in, but he could use a few tips on how to approach the big game we’ve got coming up. Any words of wisdom?”

  Tim could have hugged Dick, he was so grateful. And now, Allister Edwards turned and saw him as if for the first time. “Well,” he asked Tim, “what’ve you got?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What are your skills, your good tools — what’ve you got workin’?”

  Tim didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want it to sound like he was bragging, the way Mike had been doing for the past half hour. But the way Edwards had asked the question, how could he help it?

  Again, Dick Dunbar rode to the rescue. “Good on the dribble,” he said, “got the moves, drives the lane well.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” said Edw
ards, stroking his chin. “Tell you what, Tim — after we finish eating, let’s you and I go out and shoot a few hoops. What do you say?”

  “I say yes!” Tim said, grinning from ear to ear.

  “You’ve got to think like you’re a magnet, see?” Edwards told him, dribbling the ball as he talked. “You’re always thinking, ‘How can I get those guys to come at me?’ Then, when they do, you dish it off to the man they just left. You’re always looking to dish off, not to score. You only shoot when they leave you alone and bunch up the middle.”

  Tim drank it all in, trying not so much to memorize everything Edwards said, which would have been impossible, as to understand the way he thought out there on the court.

  “Sometimes you’ve got to drive the lane to draw attention,” Edwards went on. “Then you’re looking behind you for the free man.”

  “Looking behind me?” Tim repeated, confused.

  “You’ve got to open the eyes in the back of your head, man!” Edwards said with a laugh. “Look where they are before you drive.”

  “Oh, I get it! Sure, makes sense.”

  “Remember,” Edwards said as they wound up their session, “a point guard’s job is not to do all the scoring — it’s to make your teammates better. Oh, and one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’d better work on that jump shot of yours. Unless you make that a serious threat, nobody’s gonna come out to play you up high.”

  “But I’ve never been a good outside shooter, really.” Tim looked down, feeling suddenly doubtful.

  “You get Dunbar to work with you. He’s got himself a pretty shot. Get him to spend the whole day with you on it tomorrow, and you’ll be ready for that big game.”

  Dick Dunbar was standing at the foul line waiting for Tim in the gym the next morning after breakfast. “I understand I’m on special duty today,” he said with a grin, chest-passing the ball to Tim.

  “I really appreciate this,” Tim told him, launching a shot.

  “Well, there, see,” Dick said, retrieving the ball, “you didn’t set your feet before you shot. Now let’s start with ten shots, and set your feet each time. Then square your body to the basket —”